Talent War Fought Best With Succession Plans--Part 2

Most organizations apply little or no rigor to identifying and cultivating their top players. But what if they were to create a deep bench to draw upon?

This is what the best championship athletic teams have in common with the best corporate leadership teams. The New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves baseball teams have competed brilliantly on the basis of deep-bench strength and the development of exceptional players in the minor leagues. While occasional championship teams buy their way in with newly acquired veteran teams, the powerhouse winners demonstrate the power of relentless scouting, growing the most talented farm teams and skillfully managing the movement of players through the system.

Business leaders have similar ambitions. Yet most leadership teams can only dream about having perennial top leadership of companies such as General Electric. In today's downturned economy, it has never been more important to ensure the succession of effective leadership in organizations.

Two decades of failure in most organizations have taught us some key lessons:

* Don't confuse strategic planning with forecasting. Effective succession or talent-pool management concerns itself with building a series of feeder groups up and down the entire leadership pipeline. In contrast, replacement planning is focused narrowly on identifying specific back-up candidates for given senior management positions.

* Stop focusing on annual staffing reviews. These have become stilted, administrative tasks. They are events not continuing processes by which decisions are made and results checked. CEOs should set the talent agenda rather than spend all their time on finance or keeping the Board of Directors happy.

* Stop developing "clone" executives. While executive involvement in talent development is paramount, they should not have exclusive responsibly for their replacements. Executive continuity is often not the right objective. When pressure to grow or downsize the business produces significant changes in strategy, changes in leadership styles are necessary. Companies that create an effective succession management process quickly anticipate and fill succession gaps. They also identify employees with high management potential and actively plan their careers and development to build "bench strength." These companies align their human-capital strategy with their business strategy.

* Make talent recruitment and development a regular topic in executive team and board meetings along with finance and marketing. Best practice organizations emphasize on-the-job development not academic or seminar learning. They create progressive assignments, moving leaders through a series of challenging jobs quickly (every 18-24 months). These companies also carefully design assignments, giving clearly defined and quantifiable goals designed for scope and variety. And they individualize development, through experience, coaching and mentoring. They help potential leaders build strong networks.

One study shows that 40% of all newly promoted executives and managers failed within the first 18 months of promotion because they didn't build strong teams and network connections. Part of the problem lies in leadership training.Rather than relying on standardized off-the-shelf training programs, successful organizations develop leaders on the job through a series of challenging and diverse experiences, and offer feedback and coaching to maximize their learning experiences.

The concept and practice of succession planning needs refocusing to include a more comprehensive set of assessment and development practices that support the entire pipeline flow of talent from entry level campus recruiting through general management selection Only then can the war for talent be truly won.